War Hearts
by A Once Told Story
Summary: During a heist against terrorists gathering alien technology, Ianto is wounded and taken hostage. While Jack and the team does everything in their power to get him back alive, Ianto will do anything it takes to stop the terrorists from getting to Torchwood and his friends.
1. Hostage

CHAPTER ONE

**Hostage**

One gunshot among the many that echoed through the warehouse did not stand out at all. Yet it was that one bullet that changed the outcome of this chase. Jack knew that they were outnumbered and outgunned, but he had thought that they could outsmart these terrorists. Obviously he had been wrong.

It was all Tosh could manage not to scream in pain. The bullet had hit her in the thigh, but she was lucky enough that Owen could contain the blood flow for now. Walking was hard but manageable, running however was out of the question. Tosh shot an apologetic look Jack's way and he nodded reassuringly.

He was far from reassured. Tosh and Owen sat well hidden between two huge crates that ironically enough were marked as explosives. Jack himself stood behind a pillar in the middle of an aisle, watching the silhouettes of their followers from afar. He could see Ianto crouching behind a crate closer to the terrorists and from Ianto's looking beside him Jack knew that Gwen was there too. They were all safe, but only for the moment. The terrorists were moving towards them, searching every dark corner with guns at the ready. It was just a matter of time before they spotted Gwen and Ianto.

Jack saw movement in the corner of his right eye and turned to see a terrorist looking through the maze of crates. Seconds now, no more. Jack looked to his left and saw that Owen had already lifted the injured Tosh in his arms, awaiting Jack's orders to run. Jack tried to signal to Ianto and he was already nodding his understanding. They had one chance.

Jack made sure the man on his right was looking the other way before he ran out from where he was hiding and aimed his gun.

"Over there!" another man called out. "And two more!"

Owen made a run for it with Tosh as gunshots blew past them. Then came Gwen close behind them. As soon as he saw Ianto was out of the way, Jack fired his gun into an open crate of explosives, hoping that the blast would give them enough of a diversion to get away safely. However he was nowhere near that lucky as his shot did not trigger an explosion at all, but barely two or three colorful fireworks that quickly caused chaos in the warehouse. However the diversion was short-lived and the terrorists were soon back on the team's trail.

The fireworks had given Jack a few important seconds' head start and now he sprinted through the maze of crates and containers. He caught up to Gwen and pulled her with him through an open door and out onto the vast parking lot. There he saw the black SUV come to a stop with squealing tires. Tosh opened the back door and called for Gwen and Jack to run. Just as they made it to the car and Gwen jumped in next to Tosh, a gunshot hit the car just inches from Gwen's head.

Jack thought Gwen was the last of the team as he was about to shove the door shut behind her, but then he remembered Ianto. He must have fallen behind somehow and was now running for all his worth towards the car with gun shots flying past him and the terrorists close behind him. They were catching up.

"Come on, Ianto, run!" Gwen called from inside the SUV.

A shot hit the ground just where Ianto had just stepped. Mid-run, he swung his arm around and fired his gun towards his followers. That was his mistake.

The movement put Ianto in the line of fire and two bullets hit him one after the other. The first hit him in the calf, sending him sprawling to the ground, and the second went straight through his shoulder as he fell. Jack watched helplessly as Ianto hit his head on the asphalt and remained immobile on the ground. The terrorists caught up to him and pulled him to his knees by the collar of his suit.

"No!" Jack roared and fired at the one man who was still running towards the SUV. The terrorist fell dead to the ground with a hole through his brain and Jack aimed at the man holding Ianto.

"Don't shoot!" the man shouted, waving his gun at Ianto's head. "I'll kill him!"

He wasn't bluffing, Jack knew as much and it tore at his heart. The terrorists were fifteen, maybe twenty yards away. Only four of them had made it out of the warehouse. '_Why didn't I run?'_ Jack asked himself. '_I could've made it to Ianto and shot the men down, then fight off whoever came close enough'_. As the scene played out in Jack's head, Gwen and Owen stepped out of the car, guns in their hands but awaiting orders. Tosh watched silently, still in the SUV nursing her injured leg.

A pool of blood was growing underneath Ianto and his white dress shirt quickly turned crimson. The terrorist's grip on his collar was all that held him up as his head spun from the blow and the steady blood loss. His gaze was unfocused and tired.

Jack saw how Ianto was losing against his injuries. He put his hands up and took but a step towards the enemy. "Let him go. Let him go and we'll let you go." He spoke calmly, trying not to sound intimidating as to allay the terrorists.

The three other terrorists looked to Ianto's captor for directions, giving away his leader role. The man stared at Jack for a moment, then down on his dying hostage and back up. Through the holes in the black mask two icy blue eyes tried to spy a weakness in the dark-haired captain. When Jack interrupted their stare-down and glanced down at Ianto for a split second, the terrorist knew.

"No, I'll keep him," he said so monotonously and emotionlessly that it sounded like a Dalek in Jack's ears. "In case you decide to try and stop us again. If you do..."

_Pang!_ The terrorist put a bullet in Ianto's already blasted leg. A scream like nothing Jack had ever heard erupted from Ianto's throat before he succumbed to the pain and lost consciousness. Jack was holding back Gwen who had made to attack the terrorists and Owen was but a twitch of a finger from firing his gun.

A car speeded onto the yard behind the terrorists, their red van with the giant headlights. It drove up to them and the side door flew open, two more men jumping out with guns at the ready. The leader waved at them to carry Ianto into the car. Jack was about to run at them himself out of pure rage as he watched them mercilessly drag their unconscious captive over to the van and hurl him onto the floor.

The Torchwood team could not see the terrorist leader's scornful smirk underneath the mask, but his eyes gave it away. He took a menacing step towards them, his gun still pointing in Ianto's direction.

"Follow us and he dies."

One last cold-hearted stare at Jack and then he was gone. He jumped in the passenger seat of the van and as soon as his door slammed shut the driver hit the pedal and drove off the way he'd come. All they left behind was the stench of burned rubber and diesel, four despairing Torchwood members and Ianto's blood trail on the ground.

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**Thank you for reading and please leave a review to let me know what you think! My very first Torchwood fanfic and I've already started torturing my favorite character - next chapter will be up very soon...**


	2. Proof of life

CHAPTER TWO

**Proof of life**

Gwen was as worried as everybody else for Ianto, but she couldn't help but think of Jack. He hadn't spoken a word that wasn't a direct command since the terrorists drove off with their wounded friend. He was hiding his emotions, Gwen knew that look on his face. She wanted to ask how he was, but thought better of it. However he was it wasn't good, and asking about it wouldn't make him feel any better. So Gwen concentrated on her job in silence.

She and Jack had gone about halfway through the warehouse and she was starting to feel tired for real. They looked through every box, opened every container to try and figure out what the terrorists had been after. Whatever it was, they had been forced to leave empty-handed — well, not counting Ianto, of course.

The whole thing puzzled Gwen. This was the fourth break-in in a month by this group of terrorists, all against locations known to store military supplies and weapons. The red van with the huge headlights had been seen on all four of them, and so had an unusually high reading of alien radiation. They did not know what their scheme was, but there was something alien about it for sure.

"Found anything yet?" The question slipped Gwen's lips before she could stop herself.

"Nothing," Jack muttered, much to Gwen's surprise. "There's _nothing_."

"Maybe what they were after wasn't inside the warehouse?"

Jack looked up and met her gaze. There was compassion there, an invisible hand reached out for him to hold. '_As if things aren't bad enough_', he thought with a raising heartbeat. '_Ianto gets kidnapped and she's pitying me_'.

Gwen's cellphone signal broke the silence. Jack continued to check the crate he had just opened until he realized that the ringer was Owen.

"What?" Gwen breathed, horror on her voice. Jack looked up again, fearing what Gwen had just learned. She looked back at him her expression serious. "They want to speak with you. The terrorists want to bargain for Ianto's life."

— — —

Owen had just finished wrapping Tosh's leg in the Hub when the main door slid open and Jack rushed inside, Gwen not far behind. Owen gave Tosh a staff to support herself with and then scurried up the stairs.

"Jack, they're on the line," he explained, pointing the captain to Tosh's computer desk.

Jack ran over to the desk and leaned forward over the phone. He took a few seconds to catch his breath before picking up and putting the call on speaker.

"How did you get this number?" he demanded immediately. He feared the answer although he already knew — they must have forced it out of Ianto somehow.

The voice on the other end belonged to the terrorist leader. "We got it from your friend. He's being very cooperative."

Anger and fear surged through Jack like a poison. He could not lose his head now. "What do you want from us?"

"We know you deal with aliens," the terrorist declared. Gwen was shocked by this but said nothing. "We know that you can track the activities of the space crack that runs underneath Cardiff. We want that technology."

"Can I speak to Ianto?" It wasn't a question. He knew where this information came from. The question was what had they done to Ianto to get it within the three hours since his capture? How much pain had they put him through?

"And why would I let you do that?"

"I won't discuss anything with you until you let me speak with him."

The terrorist gave a faint laughter of disbelief and went on to mocking Jack. "He doesn't want to—"

"I saw his injuries," Jack snapped, smashing his fists onto the table so that Gwen and Owen nearly jumped next to him. "Nobody can survive that for long. You put him on the phone _right_ now!"

"I'm the one who's making the demands here, so listen to me—"

"You listen to _me_, you spineless motherfucker," Jack growled, his face a hot red color and his eyes on fire with rage now. "If your hostage isn't dead already then he is dying. And if he dies we'll be coming after you. We will hunt you to the end of the earth if we have to. And I will personally make sure that when we catch you, you will stay alive long enough to witness your own autopsy. Now let us help him!"

There was a long silence with only Jack's heavy breathing and the white noise of the phone line to break it. Jack knew that the terrorists couldn't refuse Ianto help now — he only hoped their leader wasn't cocky enough to think they could hold up against Torchwood without a hostage. Gwen glanced Owen's way for comfort, but he looked more at loss for words than ever. Finally the voice on the other end replied.

"We have a first aid kit here and a tool box. We will let your doctor speak to one of my men on your man's phone."

A weight like a mountain fell off of Jack's heart. Ianto _was_ alive. "Owen, call Ianto's cell. We don't have much time."

Owen grabbed his own cellphone and dialed the speed number. As soon as the terrorist picked up, Owen hurried down to his office, fully focused on the task at hand. Gwen stayed with Jack. It both saddened her and frightened her to see her boss this shattered. Jack was unpredictable when he was angry. But now that Ianto had been allowed to live a little longer, Jack was no longer furious. Now he was just afraid, and that was something Gwen rarely got to see.

"This doesn't change anything," the terrorist leader said plainly. "If I find you interfering with our business again I won't hesitate to shoot your man."

Jack didn't even blink, but his inside cried out for Ianto to be safe. He gave a faint smile. "Wouldn't be a challenge otherwise," he sighed inaudibly.

Then, before he could say anything else, the terrorist leader hung up. Just like that. Jack remained silent, watching the phone as if it would somehow come to life again with the raspy voice of the terrorist leader. It didn't, of course.

It was Gwen who broke the silence. "Why would he hang up like that without finishing his demands?" she asked. She couldn't make any sense of it. "Jack?"

This was getting out of hand, and Jack hated when a situation wasn't under his control. There was only one reason why these terrorists would not use Ianto's life to try and get what they wanted out of Torchwood, and that would be that they knew of another, easier and possibly more beneficial way. The thought worried Jack. The energy readings they had gathered pointed to the terrorists using some kind of alien technology in their heists. If they wanted to monitor the rift activity then their plans were bigger than what Jack had anticipated.

And as long as they had Ianto he could do nothing to stop them.

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**I simply love writing this story, and I'm overwhelmed by all the positive reviews - thank you, guys! Please, continue to review and tell me what you think, it's the best gift I can be given. Chapter three will be up soon!**


	3. Dead men don't cooperate

CHAPTER THREE

**Dead men don't cooperate**

An hour was more than Jack could take, but three was just torture. For three hours Owen was on the phone with the terrorist now in charge of caring for Ianto. Three hours until Owen deemed that there was nothing more he could do and reluctantly allowed the terrorist to hang up on him. Jack stood up and looked at Owen as the doctor went over to the sink and splashed his face. He carefully chose his next words.

"He's not going to die, Jack. We managed to remove the bullets and stop the blood flow. I believe he's got a concussion and a few broken ribs, but it'll all mend in time. He's safe for now."

_Safe_. Owen's diagnosis was all Jack needed to know that Ianto was nowhere near safe. If the terrorists had broken a few ribs to get a phone number out of him, then there was no telling what they would do to get more information about Torchwood. They had to get him out of there, but how? A dozen different rescue scenarios went through Jack's head — every single one could end in Ianto's execution.

It was ages since Jack had felt this hopeless. He sank down onto the stairs with Owen watching him compassionately. Gwen had warned Owen that their captain was fragile, but he hadn't believed her until now.

Tosh staggered to the railing above Jack and got the men's attention. "I couldn't track Ianto's cell. They are blocking the signal somehow."

Something pierced Jack's heart. If they couldn't even locate Ianto, then..?

"But I found something else that might he useful."

Jack was on his feet in a flash and raced up the stairs. He was at Tosh's desk before she could limp back into her chair, but all he could see on her screen was a weevil tracker dot. He looked at Tosh questioningly.

"I found this surge of energy outside the city," Tosh explained. "It's the same type of energy we use to track the weevils. But..."

She clicked on the tracker and the map zoomed in very closely on the spot. Suddenly there was a second, different marker next to it, blinking slowly in red.

"... there is another kind of energy coming from the very same area."

"Is it rift activity?" Jack asked.

Tosh shook her head. "No, but the computer ruled it out as alien. It could be the same kind of energy we found on the terrorists' break-in sites, but I'd have to analyze it to be sure."

"Do it," Jack ordered. "We can't risk going there to check."

Tosh nodded and immediately set on working on the analysis. Jack had his mind crumble with hope that this could indeed lead them to the terrorists. Then they would at least be one step closer to saving Ianto.

— — —

Ianto woke up in complete darkness. The buzzing of machinery blocked out every other sound and the metal floor beneath his bare skin was warm. He was stripped down to his trousers and his hands were cuffed behind his back. His mouth was as dry as a desert while the rest of his body was drenched in sweat. He tried to roll over to his back but as soon as he strained his leg a white-hot pain shot through him. Tears sprang from his eyes and he swallowed the urge to cry out causing weird gulping sounds to escape his throat.

What felt like hours of agony later, Ianto had managed to sit up straight against a wall. His eyes were used to the darkness now and he could make out the structures of his cell. There were pipes going across the ceiling and metal boxes on the walls with lightning bolts on the doors. He was in some kind of switchboard room.

Guilt suddenly crippled Ianto's heart. He remembered how he had betrayed Torchwood's integrity and thereby his friends. Under the pain of needles in his wounds and a baseball bat, Ianto had told them what Torchwood was really doing and how much they knew about the terrorists' plans. He had even given them the direct number to the Hub — a number he, Jack and Tosh alone knew. Ianto hoped for all he was worth that the terrorists couldn't track the number to location.

Ianto hadn't heard the sound of footsteps over the buzzing machinery below, but he did hear the squeaking of metal against metal behind his back. Too late did he realize that he was leaning to a door which now slammed open and thrust Ianto across the floor. In came two men in black masks with guns and a rope. One of them Ianto recognized from the questioning by his light blue eyes — eyes that, apart from being merciless and hateful, reminded him of Jack's.

"Time to squeal again, wimp," the blue-eyed man said.

The other terrorist, a bulky, strong man, lifted Ianto from the floor and forced him to stand while blue-eyes started to tie a noose around their captive's neck. Ianto tried to fight them off but the bulky man squeezed his wounded shoulder so hard that Ianto cried out in pain. His uninjured leg couldn't carry him and he would have fallen if the terrorists hadn't held him up. Then they pulled and dragged and pushed him out of the room and through long, dim corridors to another room. There were bright lights in the ceiling, tables and chairs all over and a kitchen in the corner, like in a workplace cafeteria. This was Ianto's torture chamber.

There were four more armed men and women in the room and one of them was the terrorist leader, unmasked and indifferent. He nodded to the blue-eyed man stepped up on a chair. The bulky man forced Ianto up on another chair and blue-eyes secured the noose to a lamp hook in the ceiling. Ianto thought hard but saw no chance of escape — if he tipped the chair over he would be hung.

The terrorist leader pulled a knife from his belt and held it to Ianto's stomach. "You're going to tell us where Torchwood's base of operations is. Considering what we've already got out of you I think you know that there is no use in struggling."

Ianto said nothing, trying to keep his balance while his leg and shoulder was on fire with pain. The terrorist went on to slowly pressing the tip of the knife into Ianto's naked abdomen. Ianto fought so hard not to scream but the pain was too much. His cries made his tormentor smile just slightly, but he wasn't pleased. The knife broke through the skin and a thin stream of blood trailed down the blade, but still Ianto did not speak.

"You'll lose way more than a few drops of blood if you don't talk," the terrorist hissed and moved the knife down close to Ianto's crotch. "I'll skin you piece by piece until there's nothing left of you, and then I'll go after your friends and do the same to them."

Ianto surprised his captor by giving a weak laugh. He found the thought of this man over-powering Captain Jack Harkness hilarious and absurd. "I won't tell you anything. You would never be able to defeat Torchwood even if I did. We have weapons you—"

He shut his mouth but the damage had already been done — his words had caught the terrorists' attention. Ianto cursed himself inwards asking how he could have been so stupid. The leader was just about to say something when a masked woman marched into the cafeteria.

"Our men spotted an armored vehicle heading towards UNIT base A in Cardiff. We think it might carry some good stuff. Let's go!"

The terrorists shot quick glances at their leader and ran after the woman when he did not protest. Now Ianto was alone with the terrorist leader. His heart beat like a hammer in the chest and his head spun. But his torturer only smiled.

"If I had time with you I would make you tell me all about these _weapons_ you say you have, but I don't."

Then, without warning, the terrorist kicked the chair away from underneath Ianto's feet. For little more than a split second, he was absolutely certain than he was going to die, and he had never been so scared. The rope tightened around his neck and choked him but the hook in the ceiling couldn't hold his weight. Ianto fell hard the floor, hitting his already bruised head on the chair and ripped up the stitches made to his injured leg. Blood soaked the bandages but the terrorist did not care. Without a word he left his hostage coughing and bleeding on the floor without looking back.

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**Oh, I'm being too cruel to Jack and Ianto! Break one and the other crumbles... Thank you all for the lovely comments and don't forget to leave a review to tell me what you think about the story so far! :)**


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